Arts & Culture | Museums

The publication of “The Snowy Day” in 1962 was a seminal moment in publishing history. Never before had a mainstream publisher put out a children’s book that focused on an African-American character, and never before had anyone thought that such a book could win a Caldecott Medal, one of the industry’s most prestigious prizes.

She pestered a German Jewish refugee, Manfred Nomburg, about every last detail of the Berlin home where he grew up: the wallpaper, the dining room china, the living room chairs. He had not seen his home in 70 years, when he escaped to Pre-state Israel.

But when Zack, 35, a prize-winning Israeli artist, turned all those details into a life-sized, computer-generated 3D work of art — titled “Living Room,” which goes on view at The Jewish Museum on Sunday — Nomburg did not recognize a thing.

She pestered a German Jewish refugee, Manfred Nomburg, about every last detail of the Berlin home where he grew up: the wallpaper, the dining room china, the living room chairs. He had not seen his home in 70 years, when he escaped to Israel.

A century ago, the idea of Jews resettling in ancient Israel was an interesting, if quaint, idea. For many European Jews, some of whom became prominent Zionists, real-life Palestine was utterly unrealistic. Thousands of Jews were being massacred in pogroms and the priority of many Jewish leaders was simple: secure a territory for Jews to settle in first — worry about where it was later.

American artists from Herman Melville to Mark Twain to Saul Bellow have traveled to Jerusalem looking for inspiration. But until this week, when the first-ever American Academy in Jerusalem was officially announced, there has never been a formal program encouraging artists to do so.

‘There were two of them, they were sisters, they were large women, they were rich, they were very different one from the other one.”

This was how American expat writer Gertrude Stein described Claribel and Etta Cone in her short-story word portrait, “Two Women,” about two art-collecting sisters who traveled the world as single ladies of means in the early 20th century.